Thousands of Brooklynites experience persistent pain. Back and neck pain are among the most common. Pain makes it hard to work, concentrate, take care of yourself and your family, and have fun. If left untreated, pain can ruin your quality of life. But you don’t have to accept pain as part of your everyday life. Mount Sinai Brooklyn can help.

Comprehensive Approach to Pain Management

At Mount Sinai Brooklyn, our pain management team wants to help you feel better so you can get back to your regular life. Our team works with you to understand and effectively treat your pain and improve your quality of life. We start by determining the cause or causes of your pain. We take into account your medical history, current condition, and any medical treatments you have gotten in the past or are currently receiving.

Our team has specialized training and expertise in pain management. We care for patients over age 18 who are experiencing persistent pain as a result of aging, injury, illness, or surgery. We assess your needs, coordinate a comprehensive treatment plan, and continuously monitor your progress. We strive to treat pain without surgery or opioid medications. If you do need surgery, we work closely with the appropriate surgeon to get you the least invasive care possible. 

Conditions We Treat

Our pain management team develops a treatment plan based on your individual needs and goals. We treat many types of pain, including:

• Arthritis
• Back and neck pain
• Cancer pain
• Causalgia: Pain from major nerve injury such as amputation
• Chronic pain following car accidents and other injuries
• Chronic regional pain syndrome: Ongoing and intense pain in one area, often the arms, hands, legs, or feet
• Fibromyalgia: Chronic widespread pain along with fatigue, waking unrefreshed, cognitive symptoms, lower abdominal pain or cramps, and depression
• Head and neck pain
• Headache, including migraine
• Lower back pain
• Myofascial pain syndrome (also called referred pain)
• Neuropathic (nerve) pain, including pain or numbness in the hands and feet as well as pain from shingles
• Orthopedic pain (in the muscle, joint, tendon, or ligament)
• Pain associated with herniated discs (cervical and lumbar)

Treatments We Offer

Mount Sinai Brooklyn’s pain management service offers a broad range of therapies. We provide everything from spinal cord stimulation to physical therapy. Sometimes we use more than one approach at a time. We work with the doctor who referred you to us. Treatments we offer include:

• Cryoablation: Freezing tissue and cells resulting in a thawing process that kills the cells and stops the pain
• Medications: Relieving pain and treating the underlying condition. Medications work best for conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis and gout. We use a variety of drugs, including corticosteroids, regenerative techniques (such as biologics), and non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs. We rarely, if ever, prescribe opioids.
• Nerve block therapy: Also called an epidural, this approach prevents your nerves from communicating pain to your brain. Approaches include local anesthetics, botulinum toxin (Botox), and steroids.
• Neuromodulation therapy: A method that targets the nerve causing your pain. It blocks the pain message from reaching your brain by using electrical stimulation or medications.
• Physical therapy: Strengthening the muscles around your joints to make them more stable. We teach you how you can improve your technique during sports and everyday activities to avoid re-injury. Physical therapy works best for conditions caused by injury.
• Regenerative medicine: Using platelet-rich plasma and stem cell therapy; this approach can potentially restore diseased and injured tissue and whole organs.
• Targeted anti-inflammatory injections: Injecting water-binding substances into the spinal disc.
• Trigger point injections: Injecting medications directly into the muscle to soothe muscle pain, improve blood flow and provide long-lasting relief.

Meet Our Team

The Pain Management Service at Mount Sinai Brooklyn is led by Gary Esses, MD. Dr. Esses works with an interdisciplinary team to provide comprehensive and customized treatment plans. Our goal is to help you manage and/or eliminate your pain.

Gary Esses, MD